Dating in St. Gallen: How to Meet People Beyond Your Small Town

St. Gallen has about 526,000 people and 75 municipalities, and many of them are small: 36 (48%) have fewer than 5,000 people, and 1 have fewer than 1,000. If you live in a small one, you already know what dating close to home looks like: you've met most of the single people you'd consider, or you know someone who has.

This page is for everyone in those towns. It covers why the big dating apps make a small town's dating pool even smaller, how Amarbis lets you meet people across all of St. Gallen instead, and, further down, every municipality in St. Gallen.

St. Gallen by town size

Size of place	Places	People
Under 1,000	1	988
1,000 to 4,999	35	102,000
5,000 to 24,999	37	318,000
25,000 or more	2	105,000

The typical municipality in St. Gallen has about 5,100 people. Its 2 places of 25,000 or more, St. Gallen and Rapperswil-Jona, are home to about 105,000 of the canton's 526,000 people; everyone else lives in the smaller towns and the countryside.

Why your hometown still sets the limits in St. Gallen

Most of St. Gallen is within an hour of a bigger town, but that doesn't help as much as it should on a distance-ranked app. It builds your deck from the people closest to you first, so a smaller town's deck is mostly that town and its neighbours, and the people a little farther out come much later, if they come at all.

Why the nearest city is out of reach on the big apps

Dating in a small town is hard, and meeting someone in the nearest city can be harder. Many dating apps lean on distance to decide who you see, and Tinuiti's analysis of Tinder's algorithm says proximity is a key factor in who it shows you. When someone in St. Gallen or Rapperswil-Jona opens a distance-ranked app, the people who live near them come first. You live farther away, so you land behind their neighbours in their deck, whatever your photos and profile say.

That's the small-town problem twice over: at home you keep seeing the same people, and in the city you're barely seen.

How Amarbis is different

You choose your region

On Amarbis you choose the region you meet people from instead of being limited to whoever lives closest. Choose St. Gallen and your pool is the whole canton, about 526,000 people, whether you live in St. Gallen or a village of a few hundred. A member in a town of 1,000 has the same canton-wide pool as a member in St. Gallen.

Ranking isn't based on distance

On Amarbis, ranking isn't based on distance. Choose St. Gallen as your region and the person you'd like to meet in St. Gallen isn't shown their next-door neighbour ahead of you because of where you live. It's the opposite of the proximity problem above, and it matters most to the people the big apps leave behind.

No distance limits, and the whole world if you want it

Amarbis has no distance limits, so you aren't limited to St. Gallen either. You can widen your region to the neighbouring cantons or meet someone in another country: Amarbis is an international dating app, the app speaks more than 50 languages, and built-in chat translation helps when you don't share one. The km only matter once you both want to meet.

Real people, reviewed by real people

Every member has a real face photo, photos are screened before anyone sees them, and every profile on Amarbis is reviewed by a real person. When your local pool is small, every fake or abandoned profile takes up a bigger share of what you see, so that review step is worth more in a small town than in a big city.

Free to join

Joining is free, with no credit card. The free plan gives you 25 likes a day and unlimited messaging with your matches, so you can find out whether Amarbis works for your town before you pay anything. See plans and pricing for what the paid plans add.

How to start from a small town in St. Gallen

Sign up free and build a profile that sounds like you: a clear photo of your face and one specific thing about life in your town. Our profile tips show what works.
Set your region to St. Gallen, or wider if you like.
Message first. One good question about where someone lives works better than "hey", and a conversation can start long before anyone plans a trip.
When you both want to meet, pick a public place about halfway, tell a friend where you're going, and follow our safe-meeting checklist.

Built by someone from a small town

Amarbis's founder, Nick, is from Boardman, Oregon, a small American town of about 4,500 people. The small-town dating problem on this page is one he knows first-hand: a deck full of people you already know, and a nearby city that ranks its own neighbours ahead of you. Amarbis is built so that where you live in St. Gallen doesn't decide who you can meet.

Every municipality in St. Gallen

All 75 municipalities in St. Gallen. Wherever yours is on this list, everything on this page applies to you: choose St. Gallen as your region on Amarbis and every place below is in your pool.

Altstätten: 12,278 people
Amden: 1,847 people
Andwil (SG): 2,115 people
Au (SG): 8,252 people
Bad Ragaz: 6,663 people
Balgach: 5,067 people
Benken (SG): 3,018 people
Berg (SG): 988 people
Berneck: 3,963 people
Buchs (SG): 13,605 people
Bütschwil-Ganterschwil: 5,163 people
Degersheim: 4,081 people
Diepoldsau: 6,889 people
Ebnat-Kappel: 4,979 people
Eggersriet: 2,364 people
Eichberg: 1,556 people
Eschenbach (SG): 9,996 people
Flawil: 10,446 people
Flums: 5,211 people
Gaiserwald: 8,523 people
Gams: 3,606 people
Goldach: 9,562 people
Gommiswald: 5,564 people
Gossau (SG): 18,226 people
Grabs: 7,302 people
Häggenschwil: 1,393 people
Jonschwil: 3,961 people
Kaltbrunn: 5,051 people
Kirchberg (SG): 9,632 people
Lichtensteig: 1,980 people
Lütisburg: 1,619 people
Marbach (SG): 2,137 people
Mels: 9,311 people
Mosnang: 2,920 people
Muolen: 1,253 people
Mörschwil: 3,619 people
Neckertal: 6,324 people
Nesslau: 3,733 people
Niederbüren: 1,527 people
Niederhelfenschwil: 3,201 people
Oberbüren: 4,588 people
Oberriet (SG): 9,180 people
Oberuzwil: 6,536 people
Pfäfers: 1,563 people
Quarten: 3,000 people
Rapperswil-Jona: 28,252 people
Rebstein: 4,906 people
Rheineck: 3,481 people
Rorschach: 9,777 people
Rorschacherberg: 7,620 people
Rüthi (SG): 2,472 people
Sargans: 6,443 people
Schmerikon: 4,110 people
Schänis: 4,021 people
Sennwald: 6,101 people
Sevelen: 5,279 people
St. Gallen: 76,931 people
St. Margrethen: 6,249 people
Steinach: 3,583 people
Thal: 6,914 people
Tübach: 1,587 people
Untereggen: 1,026 people
Uznach: 6,850 people
Uzwil: 13,831 people
Vilters-Wangs: 5,015 people
Waldkirch: 3,528 people
Walenstadt: 5,763 people
Wartau: 5,395 people
Wattwil: 8,954 people
Weesen: 1,845 people
Widnau: 10,178 people
Wil (SG): 24,541 people
Wildhaus-Alt St. Johann: 2,612 people
Wittenbach: 9,914 people
Zuzwil (SG): 4,997 people

Frequently asked questions

What is the best dating app for small towns in St. Gallen?

We think it's Amarbis. You choose the region you meet people from, so a small town in St. Gallen gets the same canton-wide pool as St. Gallen; ranking isn't based on distance; there are no distance limits; every profile is reviewed by a real person; and joining is free.

Why do I keep seeing the same people on dating apps in my town?

Many dating apps lean on distance to decide who you see, and in a small town the closest people are a short list. Tinuiti's analysis of Tinder's algorithm says proximity is a key factor, which is why a small-town deck fills with the same neighbours. On Amarbis you choose your region, so your pool isn't limited to your postcode.

Can I meet people from all over St. Gallen?

Yes. Choose St. Gallen as your region and you meet people across the canton, from wherever you live, without being ranked behind someone's neighbours.

Can I meet people outside St. Gallen?

Yes. Amarbis has no distance limits, so you can widen your region or meet someone in another country, with built-in chat translation when you don't share a language. Start with the international dating guide.

Is Amarbis free?

Yes. Joining is free, with no credit card, and the free plan includes 25 likes a day and unlimited messaging with your matches. Create your profile.

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More from Amarbis

Population figures: Eurostat GISCO, local administrative units (LAU 2024) population figures; canton total: sum of the municipalities below (Eurostat LAU 2024). Figures are for whole municipalities, which include the countryside around the main town. Distances are straight-line between town locations, so road distances are longer.